Barbara Metzger (9 page)

Alas, Max was a gentleman. He set her a bit apart. “Do you mind?”

“Mind? It was the most beautiful kiss I could ever imagine!”

“Not the kiss, sweetheart. Do you mind, you know, about my hair?”

“Mind what?”

“Deuce take it, that I am going bald!”

There, he’d said it. Max half expected her to burst into giggles again, but Dree wasn’t laughing. Suddenly shy, she took a step farther away. “It’s not for me to mind one way or another, my lord.”

“My name is Max, and blast it, of course it is. I know I’m making mice feet of this—I’ve never done it before, you know—but I am asking you to be my wife.”

“Your wife?” Audrina couldn’t believe her ears. Her imagination must be running away with her again.

Not precisely thrilled with her reaction, Max repeated, “My wife. Will you do me the great honor of bestowing your hand in marriage?”

“But, but, I’m only a vicar’s brat, remember?”

“No, you’re everything I want in a wife.”

“But I’ll never be a grand lady. I’ll never know how to go on in your world. Why, look what happened at my very first ball.”

“London will adore you, as I do.”

Dree could only sigh and say, “Oh, Max.” This was what she wanted more than anything in the world, but
she knew in her heart she wasn’t worthy of him. She twisted the stocking she still held in her hand. “You deserve so much better.”

Max took her hesitancy for rejection. “It’s me. I’m too old for you. I should have realized.”

“Never! Why, someone would think you were in your dotage, to hear you speak, or that I was still in the schoolroom. You’re just the right age to keep me from falling into scrapes, is all.”

“And you don’t mind, about the hair?”

“What, did you think I wanted a beau whose hair was longer than mine like that rattlepate Warden? Or who spent an hour each day putting every curl in place like your friend Podell? But you, do you mind that I’m not…” Blushing, she held out the stocking.

“That’s nothing a babe or two won’t cure, but no, I don’t mind. To me, you are perfect.” And he closed the gap between them, and showed her how much he didn’t mind. “I love you, Miss Audrina Rowe, just the way you are.”

“And I do love you, Max, and have forever. But…”

He groaned. “Have pity, sweetheart. Just say that you’ll make me the happiest of men.”

She smiled, but said, “But you haven’t asked my father.”

“What? You never cease to amaze me. For such an independent little thing, I wouldn’t have thought you’d be such a high stickler.”

“I could never marry a man my father didn’t approve, Max. And you’ve never even met him.”

“I’m sorry, puss. I know you and your father are close. And you mustn’t worry about him, you know, after we are married, for he’ll be welcome to make his home with us or at any of my estates. Or we’ll find him a curate to help here. Whatever you want.”

“What I want is for you to meet Papa first. I always said I’d only marry a man just like him.”

“Good grief, Dree, you’re asking the impossible. By all accounts your father is nearly a saint. I go to church and all, and try to support a great many charities. You don’t expect me to give up the earldom and my fortune, do you?”

“Of course not, silly. Papa is everything good, but that’s not what I meant about wedding a man like the one my mother did. She gave up her world for him.”

“I swear I’ll make you the same kind of loyal, devoted husband. And you won’t have to give up anything.”

“Just go meet Papa, then decide if you can be the man I always wanted.”

*

Max whistled the whole way back to Dree’s uncle’s house from the vicarage. His heart was lighter than it had been in years, as he rode his great stallion through the wintery woods to claim his bride. Reverend Rowe had given his permission, finally, for Max to pay his addresses in form. Max had enumerated his titles and holdings, then the contents of his bank accounts. It wasn’t until he revealed the contents of his heart, though, that the vicar had relented.

“Can’t live without her, eh?” he’d asked, his eyes twinkling behind the lenses of his spectacles. “Aye, I felt the same way about her mother. Well, you’ve my blessing, if she’ll have you.”

“She’ll have me, sir. She wants a man just like her father.”

And they both laughed over a glass of sherry, the earl with less hair by the day, the vicar whose last hair had kissed his pillow good night some twenty years ago.

The Last Valentine

Friday

Mrs. Barrett was a late sleeper.

George the cat was an early riser.

As usual, George prevailed. Thus Martine, the Widow Barrett, groped for her black shawl in the cold February dawn and draped it over the shoulders of her flannel gown. Without candle, without slippers, and without coming fully awake, Martine stumbled down the stairs of her modest home on the outskirts of Chelmstead village and fumbled at the lock on her front door.

George complained at the delay.

“Oh, shush. I’m hurrying as fast as I can. And don’t you dare awaken Mrs. Arbuthnot.” Mrs. Arbuthnot was the elderly lady hired by Martine’s father to act as her companion. Watchdog was more like it, though, Martine thought, or spy. The crotchety old dragon hated George. She wasn’t particularly fond of Martine either. The only thing that made the woman at all bearable, besides knowing she had no choice in the matter, was the fact that Mrs. Arbuthnot never rose above the ground floor. Her ankles were too swollen and sore, from too many sweet rolls and sugarplums. She had taken over the morning room and a small parlor at the rear of the
house, which was why Martine was trying to get her cold-numbed fingers around the latch at the front of the house. Martine did not wish to discuss having animals in the house, appearing downstairs in one’s undress, or showing consideration and respect for one’s elders—not at six o’clock in the morning. Not ever.

Not for the first time did Martine consider that her life wasn’t precisely as she wished it either. The door open and George gone, she stared out at the barren winter landscape. Gray, everything was gray. The cloud-covered dawn, the shriveled bushes in her front yard, the stark, square houses of the village, her days and nights. No, this was not how Miss Martine Penbarton, privileged daughter of the Earl of Halpen, had planned to spend her life. Parties, travels, gowns, servants, and handsome gentlemen, those were the things she had dreamt on as a girl, not making her own clothes, doing her own baking and wash, growing her own vegetables, or helping Chelmstead’s frail old vicar tend to his needy flock. She’d thought to have a houseful of infants. Instead, she got to teach a handful of farm children their letters when their families could spare them. She also taught Sunday school, mended altar cloths, and took tea with the matrons of Chelmstead village. Her only friend was George the cat, and sometimes she wondered about him.

Things could be worse. Oh, they could be a great deal worse, Martine reminded herself. Mrs. Arbuthnot never lost an opportunity to remind her either, of the sights they’d seen in London on their way to Chelmstead, four years earlier. Marline’s father had directed the driver to take the hired coach through the worst of London’s stews and slums, so she could see the women half-naked in the streets, begging or plying their miserable trade to filthy lechers and foulmouthed soldiers and falling-down drunks. Yes, things could be worse without the earl’s grudging generosity. They
could also be a great deal better, if he showed some mercy to his once-cherished daughter.

It seemed he’d cherished his own dreams of her marrying his heir more than he’d cherished Martine. When she refused, and disgraced herself in her rejection of Cousin Elger, the scandal was quickly covered up. Martine was bundled away to obscurity with Mrs. Arbuthnot to see she brought no further shame on the family. Meager provision was made for her welfare, but there were no luxuries, few comforts, and less forgiveness from her father. And now, four years later, Martine thought she could never forgive him for telling the world he had no daughter. What he had was no heart.

George was long gone about his own business of terrorizing the birds. Bess would let the cat back in when she came up from the village to cook and clean. She’d also start the fires, thank goodness, for Martine’s bare toes were turning blue. She turned to shut the door and go back upstairs to bed. Her days were long enough without starting them at the crack of dawn.

As she turned, a scrap of white caught her eye. A folded note was wedged under the brass door knocker. Martine removed the paper and went inside. How odd, she thought, turning the note over as she made her way upstairs. It had no direction and no return address. The seal on the back was unidentifiable, to Martine at least.

Shrugging, she broke the seal and held the page closer to the window in her bedroom.

There is one week until Valentine’s Day,
she read.
I
have waited this long to ask you to be mine. I will try to be patient until then.

There was no salutation and no signature. Martine shrugged. The note was romantic, mysterious, and a mistake. The sender must have directed a messenger to the wrong house, for Martine had no beaux at all, much less one waiting any amount of time. Why would he wait, this unknown admirer? Mrs. Barrett was a poor but respectable widow, still wearing mourning for her
soldier husband, who, of course, had never existed. That is, George Barrett had once lived, and died, but not in Martine’s vicinity. Her father had simply borrowed the fallen cavalryman’s name for his fallen daughter. She’d named her cat after him; it was the least she could do.

At any rate, no other man had approached her in her tenure at Chelmstead. Perhaps that was Mrs. Arbuthnot’s sneering influence, for she would be out of a position should Martine find a husband Or perhaps it was Martine’s aloofness that discouraged the local merchants and tenant farmers. She was attractive enough, and only two and twenty, but she truly wasn’t interested. Her life might be easier with a prosperous husband, but she doubted she could ever love again, and she could have married Cousin Elger if she wanted a loveless marriage.

No, the note had to be a mistake, or someone’s idea of a joke. But the paper was too rich and thick for any local apothecary or haberdasher, and the writing was too well formed for the farmers and sheepherders. Martine doubted that even the neighboring squires had such fine, educated hands.

Perhaps the note was meant for Mrs. Arbuthnot, she thought, and had to stifle a giggle at the idea. ’Twould take a brave man indeed to get his courage to the sticking point to approach that formidable misanthrope. No wonder he needed another week.

Was it truly just a week until Valentine’s Day? Martine supposed so, although she’d need to look at a calendar, since all her days seemed to melt together. And Valentine’s Day, well, that was for starry-eyed lovers and young dreamers, not for ones such as she. No, never again.

She tossed the note onto her desk, climbed into bed, and pulled the covers over her head. She didn’t even think of her own, long-lost love. Not once, not after four years.

Saturday

It has been four years,
the new note said.
I
can wait another six days to ask you to be mine, but oh, how impatient I grow, knowing you are so near. I think of knocking on your door, sweeping you up into my eager arms and riding off with you, but no, this time I shall do the thing properly. Sweethearts’ Day it shall be, dearest, the day the birds select their life mates. And yet I find I must ask, am I waiting in vain? Are you spoken for? If there is someone else in your life, if you would rather I left, please, sweeting, put me out of my misery now. I swear your happiness means all to me. Here is a rose as a token of my affection. If you accept it, I can keep on waiting, keep on hoping.

She should take that rose and snap its stem, shred its petals, scatter them to the ground, then stamp on them. Instead Martine clasped the note and the flower under her shawl and fled back inside and up the dawn-lit stairs, like a thief in the night. She told herself that such a perfect red rose was too precious to destroy. Not even Squire’s succession houses boasted such prize blooms.

Of course, Martine knew she couldn’t place it in a vase in the drawing room, not without facing an interrogation that would put the Spanish Inquisition to shame.

Even in Martine’s own bedroom, Bess was liable to notice and wonder where the widow came by such a flower in the dead of winter. It would be a shame, but Martine would just have to press the rose in her Bible, where no one could see it. For now, though, she climbed into her bed, the flower still clutched in her hand. Thank goodness the thorns had been removed.

This morning Mrs. Barrett was not going right back to sleep.

Four years, the note had said. Four years. It had to be him, then, not some prankster or bashful beau or mistake in the note’s delivery. In fact, he must have been watching the house, to know Martine was the one to put the cat out at dawn each day. There’d been no names again either, so he must be aware of Mrs. Arbuthnot, too. This way, if the letter blew away or got into the wrong hands, there was nothing to point in Martine’s direction. Lud, if the old besom caught a whiff of the rose’s perfume, Martine would be locked in her room, if she didn’t get tossed out in the streets. And Digby would be hung up to dry on the clothesline. Oh God, Digby.

Four years. They had been four long years for Martine. She’d stopped crying over him ages ago, telling herself he was not worth her tears, until she was convinced. It didn’t take long. The dastard had left her in the middle of their elopement. He’d taken the money her father had offered and then decamped, leaving her disgraced and devastated. Lord Halpen still wished her to marry his heir. Cousin Elger still had damp hands and rotten teeth. She refused. Her father refused to have her in his home, declaring that his honor forbade him to offer any other gentleman such soiled goods in marriage. While she was still numb with heartbreak and disillusionment, the earl packed her off, in hastily fashioned widow’s weeds, to this little backwater village, where she could rot for eternity in genteel poverty or marry some schoolmaster. He cared not which, so long
as she lived a virtuous life. The threat of being cut off entirely was there, with no resources, no recommendations for employment, no capabilities beyond a smattering of education. She had been reared for marriage, by heaven. How could she make her own way in the world?